LAX

We’re flying home from LAX tomorrow morning, so this the last day of our holiday here in the US of A. We’ve also finally arrived in LA, where we had hoped to get a chance to hang out with many of our old friends who’ve made it big over here. Unfortunately, with all the delays caused by my polygamous marriages in Utah, we now won’t have time, though a few well wishers have sent us parting gifts. We hadn’t been in the hotel five minutes when a big bouquet of flowers arrived from Victoria Beckham. I thought it was a nice touch, though Judy couldn’t appreciate it. She was in the bathroom picking shattered glass from her hair and getting the smell of cordite from her clothes.

You might say that driving in from San Francisco had been an ordeal. Judy gets nervous driving on the right and she made a bad choice on the turnpike and we ended up in South LA. Luckily, the car was a rental so we weren’t liable for all the damage from the gunfire. I didn’t mention to the rental people that I’d smashed out the back window in order to return gunfire with my shotgun. I took out at least two gang members before Judy rammed the oil tanker.

It’s the side of Hollywood you tend to forget. Which is why I think I should end with some real Hollywood facts. Do you know, for instance, that the old Hollywood sign on the Burbank Hills has become so ridden with gunfire in recent years that it’s now been reinforced with Kevlar? And did you know that Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney is a distant relative of Wayne? In the recent hot spell, safety warnings were issued for the Beverly Hills area, telling residents to keep windows open because of the toxic fumes coming from all the plastic surgery reacting to the heat. Although the media covered it up and blamed an arsonist, a forest fire is widely attributed to Jane Fonda’s ear implants combusting in some wild scrub.

The Right To Arm Bears

Guns. Guns. Guns. America is full of them. I didn’t realise how ubiquitous they were until I found one tucked under my pillow at the hotel. I rang down to the front desk to ask what it was doing there. ‘It’s complimentary, sir,’ said the receptionist. ‘It’s instead of the mint which we find makes the pillows a bit sticky in the warm weather.’

That’s how I found myself in possession of a semi-automatic and three clips of spare ammo. I didn’t know what to do. In the end, Judy suggested that I took it to the local police station. We got there before lunch and I handed in the gun. They told me they were glad to get it off the streets and I felt quite relieved until they gave me a shotgun back as a reward. ‘It’s part of our shotguns for handguns scheme’ said the sheriff. ‘We find that far less crime is committed with a shotgun on account of their being difficult to hide on the human body.’

So now I’ve got a shotgun and a hundred shells. Judy keeps giving me odd looks when I stand naked in front of the bedroom mirror and cock it. She thinks it’s all a bit unnatural. I just say that it’s the only chance in my life I might get to look like Charles Bronson. I don’t think she likes the way I keep saying ‘take that, you son of a bitch’ in a slightly lisping Lithuanian accent but I swear it will come in handy the next time we get an argumentative guest.

I still haven’t made up my mind about the shotgun. I might get rid of it before we leave for LA tomorrow or I might keep it as a souvenir of the holiday. In the meantime, here are some useful shotgun facts for you. Did you know that shotguns are the only type of firearm that haven’t been used in a political assassination yet they account for more artists, writers, and musicians than drugs? The shotgun used by Ernest Hemmingway in his suicide would now be one of the world’s most expensive had its owner not had the teeth marks repaired on the barrel. And did you know that shotguns are the only legal firearm in the UK so long as you’re either a farmer or a Tory?